


Thing is...

by the_authors_exploits



Category: Snowpiercer (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe-Happy ending??, Alternate Universe-Mason gets what she deserves, Angst, Cannibalism, Drama, Gen, baby Edgar, baby grey, canon violence, mentions of off screen rape, slash if you squint I think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-14
Updated: 2016-04-16
Packaged: 2018-06-01 23:32:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6541261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_authors_exploits/pseuds/the_authors_exploits
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Curtis is guilty and he deserves to lose his arm; but Gilliam, armless and hobbling on a crutch, looks him in the eyes when he can't go further than the hypodermis and says "Who will protect the child?" </p><p>Because if there's one thing Gilliam knows, one thing everyone will learn, it's that Curtis will kill--or die--for the boy. Guilt be damned or the reason for it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Guilt: flesh or soul?

**Author's Note:**

> I watched the movie four times and I still cant get over Curtis and Edgar's relationship; this might be considered just a retelling of the movie... Sorry
> 
>   [Come talk to me on tumblr](http://ace--jace.tumblr.com/)

The minute the knife hits skin and slices and Gilliam cries out, something snaps in Curtis. Like the world comes back into focus and colors saturate. He realizes what he’s done, sees the blood and bones scattered about; some are desperate enough to suck the blood from cracks in the metal floor, and others still gnaw on hollow bones.

The thing is, Curtis is guilty and doesn’t trust himself. But he doesn’t trust others even more; so, after another limb or two has been devoured and everyone is still complaining of hunger, he tries to wipe the blood from the baby’s forehead and tucks him in his jacket.

He’s shaking when he does it; his hands quiver when he sees there’s more blood on his hands, not a clean spot to clean the sniffling baby, and he feels his chest heave when what little warmth the tiny thing gives off settles against his body. No one notices him do it, no one watches him slip away; they’re too focused on Gilliam or the fresh meat set before them.

He tucks both of them into a corner, in the dark, in the back of the train car where not many venture, and closes his eyes; like this, he can pretend he hasn’t just murdered a woman and stolen her baby. Like this, he can pretend the rattling of the train is just a car swaying on a road trip.

Like this he can pretend that he’s not tainting the little child just by touching him, he can pretend blood isn’t drying on his hands and the baby isn’t in danger ever second; but he’ll be damned if he hands the tiny being over to a hungry passenger, one who also tore into other little babies, one who knows what human flesh tastes like and _likes it_. He can see it in their eyes now, and imagines he looked like that once; desperate and hungry and oh so guilty, so ready to eat with no conscious. To murder those who were still holding onto life, who was willing to look into a baby’s blue eyes, full of tears, and stab its mother in the heart.

God, no one even knew their names…

When people willing to amputate, donors they’re being called, when they run out of limbs or willingness it’s only been a few days since the change; there are still so many people to feed, so many empty bellies and wild eyes and sharp knives. Curtis finally leaves his little dark corner; the baby is still tucked in his jacket and he won’t leave him behind, doesn’t want others to know he’s there, so Curtis discreetly tucks his hands into the jacket pockets and cradles the babe as best he can.

He needs food; the baby needs food. So he’s going to do the only thing he thinks he can, to start his road to redemption, to do something good; he knows it won’t change anything, but he can try. He goes searching for a knife, and instead finds Gilliam. The old man is reclined against the train wall, near the front of the car, and there’s a small toddler in his lap and a woman molding an umbrella contraption by his side.

“Ahh, Curtis; how are you holding up?” His voice seems too cheerful; the last time Curtis saw him, he had chucked his arm at their feet. Now he sits, pale from blood loss, with no arm and one less leg. “Curtis?”

He swallows, feels the weight of the baby in his hands, wonders if he’s doing the right thing trying to protect the child; should he give the baby away, to someone better and more deserving? To Gilliam? But then he remembers the hollow gazes that had watched him stumble down the train car, he remembers the sound of teeth tearing skin, he remembers how babies taste, he remembers the hunger crawling through everyone. He can control his own needs and wants, he believes in himself even if he doesn’t trust himself, and he doesn’t want to make another mistake by trusting someone else. “I need…” he swallows, voice unused and dehydration scratching his throat. “A weapon.”

“Has someone threatened you?”

Curtis tosses his head negative; he swallows again, swallows nothing but air and the slightest bit of spit. “People are hungry.”

Gilliam turns his attention to the toddler in his lap, bounces the baby on his one remaining knee, and blows him little kisses. “This is Grey.”

The woman looks up at Curtis and gives him a warm smile, albeit tired; Grey giggles, quietly but high, a baby giggle. Happy, innocent.

“And his mother, Layna.”

“I need a weapon,” Curtis speaks again.

Gilliam peers over the rims of his glasses, eyes scouring over Curtis, and he shifts and looks at his feet; in his shifting he had jostled the baby too much and he feels it shift, feels it jerk, and hears the sharp insulted cry it lets out. Gilliam’s brows raise high and Layna looks up sharply, worried; and then Gilliam’s face melts into disappointment, something Curtis never wanted to see on his face ever, but Curtis is guilty and Gilliam has every right to suspect Curtis of something vile.

“He…” Curtis swallows; it’s turning into a nervous tick, something absent, something to swallow the bile and sobs. “He’s hungry, the baby; he needs to eat. Everyone…everyone is hungry and I…have two working arms.”

Gilliam lifts Grey to his feet and pushes him gently towards his mother before turning to the side and lifting a tarp; there’s a clatter as knives clank together and Gilliam waves his hand. “Take your pick.”

Curtis looks over the rusty pieces; he bends to take one, but as he removes his hand the baby slips down and he hurries to quiet the baby’s startled, slightly angry cries. “Shh, sh…”

Gilliam holds his arm up. “You’ll need someone to hold him, care for him until you’ve replenished your blood.” His tone of voice is matter of fact, even and calm, and Curtis hesitates only a moment before unzipping his jacket and pulling the child out, handing him over. Grey strains to look at the squirming bundling, still wrapped in a stained blanket, and Layna runs a hand through his thick hair.

Settled on the ground in front of them with a sharp knife, Curtis shucks his jacket and settles the metal to his skin; he would like to believe he is silent for the first slice, the second the third, the sort of sawing motion he has to settle into. He would like to believe he doesn’t turn dizzy when the blood starts welling up immediately, gushing and pushing and pouring to pool on the ground.

His cries are muffled, at least, bouncing against the bodies in front of him—his audience; he hopes they won’t comment on his tears that started shortly after the first cut. He’s not sure if the tears are for the pain or just finally culminating from his actions, the past few months. There’s a pull in his chest, heavy, when the knife meets his skin and cuts; he gets down to muscle before he can’t continue. Before he throws the knife away and grips his wound, curling around it and crying; he can’t even offer this to his people.

He can only bring death.

A cry not his own builds into a wail and he looks up; it’s the baby, cradled in Gilliam’s arm. It’s reaching upwards, high and high, and flailing and wailing. It’s hungry, he’s hungry, everyone is. It gnaws and kills.

Gilliam sighs as he, against Curtis’s protests, settles the baby in Curtis’s bloodied arms. “Tell me, Curtis; who will protect the child if you have no arms? Who will lead our people if you cannot protect us?”

“Pro…protect?” He’s too shocked to notice how the baby has settled, sucking his thumb and staring wide eyed up at Curtis’s face. “I’m not a protector.”

But Gilliam nods. “You are; you will do what is necessary to make sure we survive. You have made mistakes, but you understand hardships. And that makes you a leader.” Because Gilliam knows, even if Curtis doesn’t yet, even if everyone else can’t see it; he sees that Curtis will grow into a leader, will grow into a caretaker, will grow into a fine young man—honorable and caring. And that asset is not one Gilliam is ready to maim; not yet.

The next day, Layna shows up in Curtis’s dark corner; she comes carrying a dirty diaper bag with Grey on her hip. She hands Curtis packets of white powder, one colored pink for strawberry, and a bottle with a sucky top.

“It’s formula,” she explains. “I packed it, just in case, and hid it behind a panel.”

Curtis shouldn’t accept, but it’s not for him—it’s for Edgar.

“Have you named him?” She asks, when she’s standing to leave after what must be twenty minutes of instructions, kind and welcome. “He can’t just be baby his whole life.”

Curtis named him on the way back, after nearly chopping his arm off. “Edgar.” He doesn’t explain it; he doesn’t tell her that he was supposed to have a brother ten years younger than him. He doesn’t explain that his brother didn’t survive his first night, that he wasn’t supposed to be born so early; he thinks, if this baby got a second chance, the name deserves a second chance too.

He wonders if his own second chance will be worth it.


	2. Deserve: honor or shame?

She sees him walking the length of his bunk, a cranky baby pressed to his shoulder. He walks with a bounce in his step, soothing noises falling form his tongue, and a hand smoothing over the baby’s tiny back. Any woman would find it attractive, a man with a baby, but she recognizes the baby from when the donors were introduced, she recognizes _his_ face even without the bruises and gauntness. Still, she finds it sweet and rolls over to chase sleep. She has nothing better to do.

Two weeks after Curtis’s attempted donation, the train car doors clank open and men dressed in what looks suspiciously close to riot gear enter; they push in a tub, a wide tub filled with gelatinous blocks. They do a head count, calling for the thin and weak people to stand in a condensed block, to sit when called; it’s near madness and the guards give up, retreating when the tail enders surge forward upon realization the gelatin is _food_.

It’s bland and greasy and hardly fills them up; but it’s food, real food, and they all begin to gain some muscles again, some filling to their bones, and it’s not at expense of others. Clarity returns to their eyes, shame coloring their throats and up to their ears; Curtis sways with the train to soothe Edgar and he wonders what the future will be. Where they will go, if Wilford will take away the protein blocks and reduce them to cannibalism; Curtis won’t let them. They won’t fall there again.

The alarm blares, calling them for head count and food, and Edgar jolts from his gentle slumber; he starts crying, starts twisting and rubbing his face against Curtis’ shoulder. He does that when he’s held like this; he gets upset and rubs his face for attention. Curtis obliges, brushes a finger across the soft tufts of hair on that small head, and follows the crowd to their roll call.

By the time everyone is settled in lines, Edgar has quieted to gentle whines and snuffles and Curtis hooks an arm beneath his butt in a casual hold; the guard clickers, calls out the numbers and the people follow. They learned it was easier, better, to follow this when the promise of three meals a day was shortened to two, to one, when they continued to discard the roll call.

“Five!”

Curtis eases to the ground with the rest of his line, a sort of squat and plop; the children, the survivors, are ignored.

Then comes the lineup, starting with the furthest line, working its way to the front; most have devoured their food on the return by the time they’ve reached Curtis’s line, too starved still to not scarf it all down. Come Curtis’s turn, he pretends to munch as he moves past the guards; he presses his lips to the cold block, keeps Edgar on his furthest shoulder away from the guards, and steps back into line. He sits again and easily settles the blob of food in his pocket.

Back in their cars, with their bunks and their clothes and their meager belongings, Curtis returns to that darkened corner he hid in for weeks; he leaves Edgar with Layna—who’s glued to Gilliam’s side now—while he loosens a panel in the wall and settles the protein block in there. Between the panel and the wall is cold, seeping in from the outside and makes a good makeshift fridge; there are already twelve blocks hidden here.

Just in case, Curtis thinks; just in case Wilford wants to show his power, wants to see a blood bath again. Curtis won’t give him that; he won’t subject his tail enders to that, never again. And if it happens when Edgar is older, when Edgar can remember horrors, he wants to be prepared. So he is.

For years, Curtis stocks his panel; the pile grows, until it seeps into another panel. It piles and piles, and Edgar grows. He turns one and he’s crawling everywhere, exploring, and Curtis tries to keep him contained to within an arm’s reach but Edgar is determined. He crawls under bunks, around socializing legs, he moves fast on four and Curtis eventually catches up. Scoops him from the floor to a childish squeal, presses a raspberry to his cheek.

He turns two and he’s walking, accompanied everywhere by Grey, shadowed by the ever quiet child.

“He can talk,” Layna assures. “He just doesn’t do it often.”

Edgar babbles; he hasn’t spoken real words yet and it worries Curtis some, but Edgar babbles and chatters and laughs and laughs. His cheeks are rosy and his eyes are bright and when Curtis comes into view to pick him up from Gilliam’s corner he reaches up with both arms, cooing excitedly.

“Curs!”

Curtis wonders sometimes, as he takes the child into his arms and thanks Gilliam for watching him, patting his pocket for the protein block he earned for repairing a bunk, he wonders if it’s his fault Edgar doesn’t speak yet. Curtis doesn’t talk much; in general, he doesn’t say much. He gives Edgar smiles and his hand to toddle along with, but he hardly says much beyond _“sit”_ during roll calls and _“goodnight”_ when tucking the thin blanket around the boy.

Sometimes he can’t even look the boy in the eye, but Edgar is smitten; Edgar cries when Curtis leaves him with Layna or Gilliam for an odd job, for half a protein block or an extra blanket or the promise of loyalty. Edgar, when he starts to stand on his own two legs, reaches for Curtis’s hand; he wants to sit between Curtis’s splayed or crossed legs during roll call, clutches Curtis’s long jacket—exchanged when his other one wore out—as they pass the protein block tub. He cowers from the sneering guards, clutching Curtis’s pants leg, and sticks his tongue out at Grey when the boy also asks to be carried from the food car.

Curtis doesn’t deserve his attentions, has to struggle every day with his resolve to raise this boy right; to protect him.

Edgar’s first word is his name; it bubbles out. It stumbles out but is clear and coherent, nearly shrieked an aisle over. Gilliam was busy with personal business he had said and could not watch Edgar, and Layna had her hands full watching Grey and attempting laundry for the tail enders, so that left Edgar to shadow Curtis around. And, as is the general cliché with children, as soon as Curtis’s back is turned for one second he disappeared. Turning back, Curtis is welcomed with an empty spot where Edgar had been.

Henriette, an elderly lady Curtis was delivering food to, glances about with him. “I’m sure he’s fine, darling,” she drawls, brushing a shaking hand against a wisp of hair; she doesn’t have much left. A lot lost their hair with lack of nutrition, a lot began shaking after eating too much flesh, a lot became crippled with no reason to get up.

Some others, Curtis knew, had never shaken the crazy from their minds.

And while Curtis knows no one eats others anymore, while he knows people have a good amount to eat, that people have become kind and helping now, he can’t help but worry; so he goes searching. He looks under every bunk, he glances into each barrel along the way, under any blankets he finds.

And then there’s a shriek, a voice he recognizes well from unintelligible babbling over protein block dinners, crying out “Curtis!” It’s slurred, but it’s there, and Curtis goes running.

There’s a commotion, a woman yells out, and Curtis turns the corner to find a throng; he shoves the bodies apart, pushing some into bunks to pass by, and when he reaches the center of the group it’s to Edgar in the grip of a half dressed man. His ribs are visible, skin stretched taunt, and his beard is too long for his balding head; in one hand, he has Edgar’s tiny wrist and in the other he holds a piece of piping.

“Such a pretty face…” the man hisses, eyes roving everywhere but on Edgar.

“Let him go,” Andrew calls from somewhere on the other side of the crowd. “That’s Curtis’s kid!”

But Milo doesn’t; he draws Edgar closer, crying Edgar, sobbing Edgar and Curtis takes a step forward and latches onto Milo’s wrist.

“Let him go,” he growls.

Milo’s eyes settle on Curtis; his pupils are blown wide and he’s missing seven teeth. His brows are bushy, his beard tangled, and he grins wide. “Ya want some too?” he asks, pointing the pipe at Edgar. Edgar whines loudly and his tiny little fist tries to detach Milo’s hand.

Curtis’s hand moves fast and clenched Milo’s wrist; his fingers go around the bony appendage one and a half times, and he squeezes tight and pulls. Milo lets go, and Edgar falls down onto his bum, suddenly quiet.

“Don’t you ever touch him again.” Curtis turns to Edgar, whose eyes are welling up and spilling over again, tracking down his dirty face, and Curtis scoops him up.

He leaves the aisle behind, goes to their bunk, and draws the curtains closed; he doesn’t realize Edgar spoke until the next day, when Edgar is done crying and is smiling again, running around like always. But he doesn’t stray farther from Curtis than the length of a bunk aisle.

The years go by in a haze of monotony; protein blocks for breakfast, little jobs of repair, protein blocks for lunch, socializing or napping or planning a revolt, protein blocks for dinner, sleep. Rinse and repeat; some read books, gifted from the front on Yekaterina Bridge Day, and others scratch images into the train wall.

When Edgar is six, the first revolt takes place; it’s uncoordinated, sudden. It starts at lunch count; Curtis had felt the tensions rising, the anger growing, had heard whispers of planning. How he wanted to revolt, but he stays quiet; he goes to bed at night, when Gilliam’s candle burns late into the night, and keeps Edgar pressed between him and the wall.

It’s too early for Curtis to join in; Edgar still can’t throw a punch strong enough to fend off those who will hurt him. Tanya is getting married, and Andrew’s wife is sick; Grey is still young, impressionable, and spends his time with Gilliam—it worries Layna, though she spends most her time with the old man. Her husband had been killed during those first few days of hunger.

He cannot risk his death, though there’s an anger burning through his veins and wiggling beneath his skin.

They’ve just sat down, as their line was called, and Curtis tugs Edgar into his lap; the tension is palpable, Curtis is worried, and he keeps Edgar close. There’s an eye on Tanya, in the line in front of him, sitting next to Danny; behind him he knows is Andrew and Theo, a twelve year old—another survivor like Edgar.

It happens quick; Felix stands and goes forward, and thirty people follow. They have no weapons but their fists and their yells, and Curtis clutches Edgar close, stumbles to his feet, and takes hold of Tanya’s hand. He pulls, and she follows. There’s shots behind them—loud—and screams, and Edgar shrieks in terror.

Curtis is followed by others, others not in the revolution, and he orders them into the back of the cars. “Get going! Run! Don’t stop, just go!”

It’s poorly executed, both the revolt and the retreat; he hands Edgar off to a passing Andrew, who takes the boy and runs, and Curtis turns back—ignoring Edgar’s pleas to come—to see two people gunned down, two who were trying to retreat. His blood boils, but he tears his eyes from them—forgets their names for a minute, forgets their family’s faces, forgets their voices—and waves people in.

The guards don’t follow Curtis and his group; instead, they turn their attentions to the revolters, to the ones who have pushed forward in victory.

By the time the revolt is settled, Mason comes to inform them everyone was killed in the guard quarters; gunned down, ripped to shreds, defeated. They sit in their neat little rows, their numbered lowered, and listen to Mason gloat; Curtis watches, glares, at the guns in the guards hands. He lets Edgar clutch to him, keeps a hand in the boy’s hair, scratches softly when Edgar sniffles and shakes.

That night he lays awake and listens to families and friends cry in mourning, weep in fear, some scream in anger; Edgar is curled atop his chest. He breathes through his mouth, his nose too clogged from crying, and Curtis wonders if he'll grow out of that—grow out of his tears. Tears, Curtis thinks, won’t get him anywhere.

The following day, no alarm sounds; there’s no roll call, and with that there’s no protein blocks. The day passes quietly, some whisper in fear—those who remember the first few months. It haunts, but no one actually speaks of it; too afraid of scaring the younger ones. And if Curtis had anything to say in it, no one says anything or looks at him differently. (They look at Edgar and remember a baby crying, suspended over the bloodied body of a woman in a blue dress.)

Thing is, Curtis was prepared for this; he opens the panels, secretly, without anyone following him and distributes the food. He sets up a ration time: every other day they’ll get two blocks. Then one block if the blockade lasts longer; Gilliam approves and everyone agrees.

Edgar stays by his side all the time now; he keeps a hand in Curtis’s back pocket or hooked in his belt loop. He doesn’t smile much anymore; he glares at everything, or vacantly stares at the wall. Shock, Gilliam had offered and Layna, holding a sleepy Grey, had petted Edgar’s hair and whispered _“Sadness”_. Curtis thinks it’s something different, something deeper; a loss of innocence, maybe.

The blockade lasts only a month, probably when Wilford realizes he won’t see a blood bath again, and the protein blocks return; Curtis still stocks up on them, hides them. Edgar holds up his block one day.

“Can you hide mine too?” He asks, eyes wide, that strange accent coming through; where did he pick it up from?

Curtis shakes his head. “No, eat your food.” He turns to go, and Edgar tugs his hand suddenly.

“But…” he bites his lip. “What if it happens again?”

Curtis kneels down; he pats Edgar’s cheek. “Don’t you worry about that; eat your breakfast.” It won’t happen again, Curtis thinks, because if it does he will kill Wilford.

Edgar is eleven when he gets really sick; people get sick all the time in the tail end. There are cramped quarters and poor hygiene and cold permeating the walls; Tanya is pregnant, and Andrew’s wife is sick again, and Milo for some reason has started sniffing Kronol. Curtis wonders what month it is, if the front sectioners keep track of that, and he tells Edgar to sleep when the alarm blares.

They stand for their food, give information on why there are less heads for roll call, and a guard goes in the back for inspection. Curtis swears if he lays a hand on Edgar or Frankie or Lily then he’ll be leading the next rebellion immediately; when food has been distributed and everyone settles back in their bunks, Edgar shifts to curl against Curtis’s side.

“They were talking about a rebellion.”

“Hm?”

He snuffles and rubs his stuffy nose against the thin blanket. “Said seven tried to escape.”

“The train?” Curtis asks around a glob of protein; Edgar refuses his block, says he isn’t hungry, and hands it off to Tanya when she passes.

“Mmhm.”

“Poor SOBs.” Because Curtis tries hard not to curse in front of Edgar.

“They’re frozen, huh?”

Curtis nods, tells Edgar to sleep more, and doesn’t move when Edgar chooses him as a pillow.

Thing is, Curtis thinks, when he finds Edgar in Milo’s corner behind some bunks—after following the smell of meat—thing is not everyone wants to stop. He looks on in horror, wide eyed, and glares at Milo’s Kronol vacant eyes.

“Milo has steak, Curtis!”

And Curtis swallows; he doesn’t think how Layna went missing two days ago (women were dragged to the front enders all the time, sometimes even cute boys), doesn’t imagine Grey sitting unaware in Gilliam’s corner. He nods at Edgar and swallows down the nausea; he ignores Milo’s crazed, satisfied, shit eating grin, and holds a hands out for Edgar. “That’s…that’s nice…” he chokes out; he can’t take another step closer because he remembers, he remembers how good it felt to have actual meat in his stomach. Edgar leaves the meat behind, licking juice from his fingers.

“Do you want some?”

“No!” Curtis nearly yells. “No, I don’t want some. Come on…” He leads Edgar away; he tells Gilliam of what he found, he tucks Edgar in with a hurried, half-assed explanation of why they can’t have steak everyday (“there’s not enough grass for the cows back here”, and the boy asks “what’s grass?”), and when Edgar is snoring and Grey has been informed his mom is gone, Curtis returns to Milo’s corner.

Thing is, Curtis has already taken so many lives; this one seems, somehow, more justified.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the thing, Edgar tells Curtis "I had steak once" at the beginning of the movie but then Curtis says, at the end, that Edgar was a baby and the tail enders were fed protein blocks. So...how did Edgar have steak? Someone fed him human flesh and told him it was steak and yeahh I might be a little crazy with angst right now


	3. Sacrifice: them or you and him?

Edgar is seventeen and Curtis’s shadow, like always; Curtis raised him, Curtis knows it’s not enough. So he lets the boy trail him everywhere.

“I had steak once, but I can’t remember what it tastes like.”

Curtis remembers, but he says nothing; it wasn’t always steak.

Edgar obeys his orders, inputs his opinions, and Curtis shoos him away like an exhausted parent; Gilliam chuckles. Curtis is not a hero, not idyllic. He raised Edgar to be better than him, and he knows the boy will be. But over the years, Curtis has been drawn into the revolution; he’s been drawn into the red letters and Gilliam’s coaching words. He lets Edgar traipse after him, at arms’ length, because blood will be shed and he doesn’t want it to be Edgar’s.

He plans the barrel barricade, doesn’t see the fear that seizes Edgar when he presses the gun to his forehead and pulls the trigger; he does, however, hear his yell. He hears the strong voice call out, listens to his followers carry the barrels. He sets them up, leads them, goes in first because if he refuses to act then he won’t tell his followers to do it.

When Namgoong launches himself at Edgar, Curtis watches it calmly; he doesn’t appreciate an attack upon the teenager, but he allows it for now. Edgar has been vying for more freedom, moments where he may prove his worth; so Curtis watches, he assesses, then he steps forward and breaks them up. When Edgar tries to scramble over his shoulder, Curtis shoves him away—not necessarily unkindly, but exasperated.

When they’ve settled on an arrangement and Namgoong is plucking at tiny screws on the panel, Curtis settles a hand on Edgar’s cheek, brushes down to brace the base of his head, and gently rubs at the blood from his nose.

“I can do it,” he protests and Curtis hums, pulls the hem of his sleeve over his palm, and wipes the red away.

“You need more practice.”

Edgar rolls his eyes; he has a piece of piping in his hands that Curtis should take away, should send him to wait with Gilliam. But he’ll protest: _“Grey can fight, why can’t I? Who will watch your back if I’m not there?”_ Curtis touches the bridge of the boy’s nose; he gets a small wince. Satisfied it isn’t broken, Curtis releases the boy and tucks his hands in his pocket; he watches Nam work, Yona asks for Kronol, and Curtis turns from Edgar.

The doors open, a few cars down, to masked men with axes; Curtis pushes Yona back, sends her to safety, he stares down their enemies and when there’s a brush against his side he, without hardly a glance, tucks Edgar behind him. Edgar follows easily, obedient but buzzing.

“Be careful,” Curtis warns, protective.

“Yeah,” Edgar responds. “You too,” he breaths, puffs across Curtis’s shoulder.

The violence is familiar; Curtis pushes, he grips an axe and wields it like he’s done it before. He has; Edgar goes sailing into a threat, Curtis raises the weapon, and brings it down. Blood splatters, Edgar stares up at him wide eyed, Curtis wipes the blood from his face. He doesn’t see a masked man, but he sees a woman with a full head of golden curls and a blood splattered chest; he sees a baby swaddled in a stained blanket, crying and reaching for him, for safety.

Curtis moves on; he ignores the awed gaze on his back.

Edgar turns eighteen, Grey turns twenty, Curtis turns thirty-five; others age, and then darkness comes quick. Curtis thinks, hurriedly, pulling every last bit of memory and resources he has; he stands in darkness for a moment and feels alone.

“Chan! We need fire!”

And the boy delivers; he sends the flame to them, Grey carrying it, Andrew carrying it. They form a chain of power and send it to victory; and the front enders, they weren’t expecting it. They were expecting primitives, unprepared, and they got primitive light; caveman answers to ludicrous challenges, but it’s effective and Curtis plows on.

He hears Mason cry out, sees her falter, clutching her leg; Curtis surges forward with a purpose. If they have her, his people can survive; they can stop being slaughtered, and they will have a bargaining chip. He wants to hold her, have his hands around her neck, her arms, bruising; he wants to make her hurt like he and his people have. It’s only fair.

_“CURTIS!”_

Thing is, it’s a shriek he knows well; it stops him in his tracks, makes his blood freeze colder than the outside world, makes him turn immediately—without hesitation, with fear and direction and _“how dare you hurt him”_ on the tip of his tongue—but he doesn’t go further. He stares at Edgar’s face, wonders why he didn’t wipe all the blood from his cheek, he watches the boy watch him; he sees Franco the Younger yell something, something he doesn’t hear, because his ears are ringing with that piercing cry.

And he knows his choices; they flitter through his mind. To surrender is to mark everyone for death; to go for Edgar is to lose their chance of ending this quickly, and Curtis knows that he will only cause the Younger to slice Edgar’s throat before he can take two steps; to go for Mason is to cement Edgar’s fate, betrayal of the coldest kind, but to save everyone else.

Suddenly, Curtis is the man with the knife again.

He closes his eyes tight, shoves the images of a baby crying in a pool of blood; he forgets Edgar’s first steps, he dissolves the memory of holding the small thing, he locks away Edgar’s smile and his voice. He erases his name and pivots; he doesn’t look back. He's done it all before, tearing apart people he knew, swallowing parts of them. He is cold and uncaring, a pretty lie he wants to believe in.

His hold on Mason is satisfyingly bruising, and he marches her pass their dead comrades, pass the surrendering; he catches sight of his old, patchwork jacket. He watches unseeing eyes stare as his feet shuffle pass. Edgar is bathed in blood and it shouldn't be a familiar sight but it is. He begs and hopes and silently tears his eyes away; Allen steps forward to secure Mason, the Younger stands to attack, Yona spears him through the diaphragm.

Curtis only momentarily feels satisfaction before an emptiness crawls into his ribcage and laughs; it tears at his bones, and he leaves his people to tidy up. He cannot, though he is their leader and should, and he feels everything slowly collapse.

Gilliam is the one to brush Edgar’s eyes closed, to gently touch his face, to kneel by his side and mourn; he stumbles to his knees, knee, and he shakes. There’s a sense of foreboding with the action, a moment where reality sets in; they have lost many, they will lose many more. Edgar was a symbol to do better, to try harder, to work and survive and fight; when the battle flag has fallen, surrender normally comes next.

Curtis falls next to him, pulls the beanie off his shaven head, shakes and shudders and fights.

“Survivors,” Gilliam’s voice cracks, and Curtis shudders a breath; that used to mean something else, represent something shameful, what feels so long ago. Now it’s spoken, still heavy, but somehow lighter; survivors of a massacre worth fighting for. “Wash the blood away.”

Curtis wants to tell them the truth; thing is, he knows, water will never be enough to clean the blood. He stares at his hands in his lap and imagines his sins. He can’t even look at the dead boy besides them, and he shudder another breath. He can’t cry here, not in front of everyone; he needs to keep his resolve, to inspire everyone. He cannot break here, not now, so he keeps shuddering and pretends he can’t hear a familiar voice, a unique accent, pretends he didn’t love the child that lays too still a foot away.

He says goodbye the only way he knows how, feels his guilt swell with a kiss pressed to Edgar’s temple; he wants to say good night, go back to when Edgar was a child—three or four—when things seemed easier if heavy. He wants to go back to when Edgar was alive and he had something to redeem him.

They chain Mason to pipes; they threaten her, they ask questions, she praises Wilford and the damn engine. Curtis challenges her.

“Call him; if Wilford is so caring, call him here.”

She spills secrets; she strikes fear and disbelief, curiosity and the sick feeling of being _watched_ that is confirmation. And then she twists and jerks, pours salt where she shouldn’t, challenges who she should know better than to harm further.

“Too bad you couldn’t save your second-in-command,” she gloats.

Curtis knows Gilliam has tensed; he feels Grey’s eyes watching him closely, always so observant, and he sees Tanya shiver, listens to Dylan suck in a sharp breath.

“What was his name again? Ed- _gar_?” She titters, and Curtis is moving before she even finishes.

There’s a knife in his hand, pulled from seemingly nowhere, and she can’t stop him; Andrew doesn’t stop him (he clutches his weapon tighter, positioning to back Curtis up), Tanya sways out of the way clutching the portraits closer. Painter’s charcoal pauses momentarily, Gilliam sits stonily, and Grey turns away—he’s always silent, but ever emotional. Loyal and hurting. Curtis smooths the weapon into her throat with a growl, steps back, and watches her choke on her own blood.

No one faults him for it; no one cries out _“What are you doing? She’s our only chance, our only hope!”_ Because she’s not; she never will be, she never was. Their hope was always Curtis, their chance will always be Curtis; if Snowpiercer is their protection against the cold, then Curtis is their protection against Wilford. Their fearless leader who just lost his kid, another name added with Andy and Timmy, with Harry and Kylie and Sam. Another martyr for their cause.

They don’t begrudge him his vicious vengeance; he would kill for Edgar.

(He will die for him too, in a way; at the front, he will hand over the matches, he will sacrifice his hand, he will wrap Yona and Timmy between him and Namgoong. He will do it in hopes of redemption, of making Edgar proud, of securing a future—everything he’s ever wanted since those days of shame.

There has to be a future, he will think; and if there isn’t, there had better be an afterlife.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're a glutton for pain, feel free [to view this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ez6JTEtExA) that has been playing on loop for the past week hahaaaaa


	4. Death: now or soon?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a bonus chapter because they deserve a somewhat happy ending...

Grey hears everything; he’s Gilliam’s eyes and ears about the train, and he’s Gilliam strength and weapon. Gilliam says go, Grey runs.

Edgar feels everything; he’s Curtis’s heart and soul in physical form, and he’s Curtis’s right hand man. Curtis tells him to follow, and Edgar sticks to his side.

This is how everything has always been; Grey in his place, chasing errands for Gilliam, and Edgar in his place, hanging onto every word Curtis speaks.

But then it all falls apart; it starts somewhere around the time they loose Namgoong and Yona. It starts at the beginning, Grey believes. Around the time Nam launches himself at Edgar, when Curtis watches quietly from across the drawer prison, when he steps forward and pushes Edgar away; when Edgar, righteously angry in Grey’s thoughts, goes to attack Nam and is shoved away in impatience.

Grey understands Curtis, however; Nam is their ticket pass the doors. They need him for support; not to mention that Edgar was being mouthy, again, as always and Grey figured it was only a matter of time before someone knocked him around. But he also understands Edgar. He understands the hate of being suddenly attacked, of not understanding why despite it, technically, being his fault. He understands the grudge of a bloody nose while your caretaker looks on casually; Gilliam did it during practice fighting, when Grey was popped in the jaw hard by a guy twice his size and was knocked out for seven minutes…

Grey understands people; he sees things.

When they open the door to the men with hatchets, to Yona’s scream, something settles in Grey’s bones; something heavy and tired, something sinking in his stomach. He lets Edgar push pass him to settle by Curtis’s side; it’s his place, Grey thinks, shucking his layers so he can move easily.

Curtis presses Edgar behind him, whispers for him to be careful, Edgar returns the sentiment breathlessly; Grey wants to cry. He checks where Gilliam is in the crowd and at Gilliam’s nod, he moves forward with the fighters.

It’s a bloodbath, and it goes by fast, pausing when they pass the bridge to cheers and fearful tumbling with sharp objects, a moment of unity oddly enough; and then it starts again, when darkness comes, fear gripping everyone. Grey hopes Gilliam is alright, wonders if Curtis has fallen, as he hears the slicing of flesh and the wailing of the hurt and dying. Then Curtis’s voice, loud and clear, carrying through the train and light follows; he speaketh and it comes to fruition.

Grey tugs a man close, shows him the words, offers him a choice; Mason doesn’t care. She shrugs, uncaring, and Grey frowns; that is not a leader. A leader cares for their people. Mason is not a leader, Wilford is not a leader. They do not care; Franco the Elder tries to block him when he rushes forward for the woman, the retreating bug. He ducks, he turns, he pulls his knife and flings it; the knife hits its mark, and Grey turns to retreat, weaponless.

He hasn’t gone far, just within the throngs of beings, when he hears it; when he sees what he has feared and he freezes.

_“CURTIS!”_

There’s a flash of a memory, fuzzy, of a crying Edgar pressed to Curtis’s shoulder clutching his tiny wrist; before that, there’s a vague shriek. Grey halts, Curtis turns; they stare far across the swirling bodies. Grey knows where Curtis was headed; he set it up for Curtis after all. There’s a doubt, an anger, pulsing with every heartbeat and Grey isn’t sure which option will satisfy him.

Franco the Younger pulls Edgar’s head back, pins his arm, holds a long sharp knife to his throat; Edgar has eyes only for Curtis, Franco’s determined glare doesn’t pull either’s attention. And when Grey looks to Curtis, he watches his eyes close, watches a calm emptiness wash over his face, and then he pivots and runs.

Seconds later, heart shattered and swelling, Grey watches Edgar’s face fall; his eyes fill, his body slumps, and then he jerks, uncoordinated, and Grey starts running.

Edgar flails for Curtis, despite how easy it would be to grab the knife from Franco the Younger, and reaches out; Grey sees the Younger’s motions, predicts his movements, to grab Edgar’s jacket and pull him onto his knife, spear him in death, and Grey spurs forward faster.

Franco the Younger grazes Edgar’s jacket, grips tight, and Grey comes in quick; he uses the arm gripping Edgar as a bar for support, lifting himself up and sending his leg out in a kick against the armed hand. The knife goes flying, Grey twists, tightens his thighs against Franco the Younger’s neck, and eventually the man slumps, unconscious.

Grey hops off and grabs Edgar’s arm; he had collapsed to the ground, tripping when Franco the Younger grabbed him, had slipped on the blood that coats the floors. Grey ignores his listlessness, plucks the Younger’s knife from the ground, and presses Edgar to the window; he’s safe, between Grey and the wall, and Grey fends off anyone who comes too close.

Curtis has hold of Mason, and their enemies surrender at her order; Grey only backs off a few paces from Edgar, too warry to leave him alone, and he and Edgar watch Curtis march pass them with his prize. He looks momentarily at the pair, and then he looks away quickly; his face colors in shame, Edgar shakes. Grey nudges his shoulder, mumbles quietly.

“He had no choice,” and while it’s the truth, Grey understands the feeling of betrayal. He felt it too, momentarily, but he knows.

Whether Curtis had stepped forward or gone after Mason, Franco the Younger would have slit Edgar’s throat; Grey understands. He understands, but he still has a hollow in his chest and he wants Edgar to stop shaking.

Edgar doesn’t stop shaking until after they’ve washed the blood off, until after everyone has settled for sleep, until Edgar has asked to sleep with Grey and Grey obliges, removes a coat and tucks it around his friend; only then does Edgar stop shaking, only then does the adrenaline rush wear off and a sleep like death takes everyone. Grey only half listens to Gilliam and Curtis talk, murmur, in the dark and Grey slips to sleep.

The next morning, Curtis passes by the two; he pauses long enough to pull his beanie over Edgar’s cold ears, staring regretfully at him, and then he moves on. Grey watches him go, watches Edgar tug the beanie further over his head; he smiles.

They maybe survive Franco the Elder, they maybe die; they maybe make it to the engine; they maybe take control, take power; they maybe blow a hole in the side and derail the train; they maybe die in a glorious fire, or they maybe die quietly at the end of a knife.

Thing is, they definitely survived for now, and that counts for something.


End file.
